Wednesday, March 23, 2011

I think most people have to agree that all things considered, this season went pretty well. After losing Lasan Kromah, who had a great season as a freshman, right before the year started, there was a lot of doom and gloom. There were early losses to BU, Hampton, UNC-Wilmington, and in the BB&T, Navy, and lots of folks (including me, sort of) were calling for Hobbs's head.

But then things started to improve, Nemanja Mikic came on as an awesome shooter (and Washington's Newest Nemanjament), the guys started to find their roles, Tony Taylor became an absolute beast, and GW won 8 of 9 at the end of the OOC schedule and start of A-10 play.

There were still boneheaded plays, missed free throws aplenty, and questionable coaching (defending the 3 was painful at times), but soon enough GW was 10-6 in conference and 17-14 overall. The good guys ended the season winning 5 of 7, Dwayne Smith and David Pellom had some good games, Katuka had some double-doubles, and Jabari Edwards turned on the defense.

Who woulda thunk it. Hobbs turned around what could have been his worst season into one of his better coaching performances.

And there was other good news too: there didn't seem to be much intra-team conflict, no players left (as far as we know), and crowds got bigger and louder as the season went on. There was a cool story about the new mayor, Vince Gray, who is an African American and was the president of a Jewish frat during his time at GW.

Jack Kvancz announced his retirement and the university announced a review of athletics, hopefully to make it better. I say that's good because it'll be nice to get in some fresh blood, but Kvancz did do a good job as AD. Can't beat that 2005-2006 season.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Bracket busted? Yeah, mine is. I started a group at Yahoo! Sports in their Second Chance Bracket contest, where you can win $5000 bucks. It's called GW's Newest Nemanjament -- Washington's was too long.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

So GW lost, but you can still have an awesome time in AC for the A-10 tourney. I've been a couple times and here's my recommendations.

First off buy a bunch of beer somewhere outside of town. It's expensive/hard to find in the city.

Hotels: if you are a cheapo like me, the Comfort Inn and Days Inn are reasonably priced, they're close to the strip and you won't get gangrene. If you're a baller then some casino I guess. The Borgata is supposed to be nice but it's not on the strip. Stay as close to the strip as possible unless you want to cab it all the time.

Food: There's a bunch of places to eat in the Tropicana, like Red Square, a decent Russian place. Plus you can order delivery food to your hotel. There's also Irish Pub, on Kentucky Avenue right off the strip. Just Irish Pub. It's a laid-back Irish pub, kind of a dive, with cheap beer and whiskey and decent pub grub. I always go, worth a stop.

Bars: Casinos of course. The Tropicana also has a few bars. Last time I was there we got kicked out of a karaoke bar there because my buddy was drunk and dropped a beer. For some reason, the Dizzy Dolphin on the Boardwalk was a big meeting place last time around. It's in the Hilton and they have slot machines at the bar you can play. Plus, there's Irish Pub.

Adult Entertainment: And I don't mean casinos. The main place you'll want to go is called Bare Exposure, it's the only all-nude place there and it's BYOB, which means you can bring in a case of beer or two.

Make sure to get somebody from another A-10 school the "Hot Seat." He will not thank you later, but everybody else there will. Don't talk on your cell phone though, the same buddy as before got kicked out for talking on his phone in the bathroom.

Casinos: Of course. I like the Tropicana, Caesar's is alright, and the crummy looking one next to Bally's (I forget the name, maybe Claridge?) is less nice but seems to have better odds on slots and you get more free booze there, in my experience.

Other fun stuff: The Boardwalk, of course, has lots of boardwalk-related crap: t-shirt shops, carnies, fried food, and so on. There's an amusement park on the boardwalk, plus some reasonably fancy shopping. There are also pedicabs. Last A-10 tourney I remember some drunk Xavier fans pushing around a passed out friend of theirs in one, which was pretty funny.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

GW played lethargically and it seemed like nobody wanted to step up until about 5 minutes to go in the game, then we turned it on, tied it up, missed two short last-second shots, and that was that.

Tough loss, but in all a pretty good season. The Smith Center atmosphere was phenomenal, that was the loudest and most full I've heard it since the 2006-2007 season. Great to see that. Prof Kasmir, aka HERO, was in the house, and a bunch of random guys in the side seats printed out my Kasmir HERO poster and brought them, which was cool.

So is the season over? Probably. The CIT is only for small conferences and I don't know if a 17-14 record will get us into the CBI, and definitely not the NIT. We'll see. I'm looking forward to next season anyway, especially Nemanja, Tony Taylor, Pellom, Smith, KROMAH!, Copes & Davis.

Your thoughts on the year? It was infuriating at times (BB&T, crappy losses) but overall we did better than I thought we would. Plus, you know: